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Wednesday, 25 March 2015

Worshiping mammon while pretending to serve Jesus
Christ: When the mammon worshipper took cover: Prosperity Gospel Televangelist
Creflo Dollar’s Plea for Help to Buy $65 Million Private Jet Removed After
Backlash

Why Creflo Won't Be Getting My Dollars

I'm all for generous giving, and I'm all for taking care of ministers of the
gospel, but I will not be sending Creflo Dollar $300 to help him buy a $65
million jet for his ministry. The very thought of it is obscene.

On a manipulative video
now removed from his website, the narrator explains how Pastor Dollar's
ministry is touching people worldwide and how the old private jet they've been
using for years has become unusable, also explaining how it is actually
dangerous to fly.
Now, we are told, in order to travel around the world, he needs a new jet,
and not just any jet. It is a top of the line jet that is being coveted
by billionaires who are on a waiting list to purchase one.

Yes, Creflo Dollar is asking for 200,000 people to send him $300 each in
order to buy this ultra-luxury flying machine.

What's really sad is that some people will actually do it.

What's even sadder is that this same money could be used in millions of more
productive ways.

What's the saddest of all is that this financial appeal is bringing reproach
to the name of Jesus and making a mockery of the gospel before the eyes of the
world.

Can we be real for a moment?

Creflo Dollar is not the only super-busy gospel minister on the planet
(let's put aside whether you agree with the message he preaches), and many of
us run hard for the Lord day and night, also flying around America and to the
nations.

We can manage just fine without a private plane.

Yes, you're in and out of lots of airports; yes, there are more flight issues
to deal with because of delays and often, the seats aren't that comfortable.
Yes, there are baggage problems and there can be lots of time wasted; yes,
sometimes you have to fly through the night, arrive without much sleep in the
morning, and start a full day of ministry.

That's called life, and all of us have to deal with it.
But given the choice of redirecting multiplied millions of dollars for
ministry work to fund the gospel—we're talking about the cost of buying the jet
and the cost of maintaining it—or putting those millions towards the ultimate
private jet, I think the choice is pretty easy to make.

Can anyone really think that their own ministry is so important that 200,000
people should give sacrificially to help them travel in greater comfort?

To be perfectly clear, if God blessed Pastor Dollar with a best-selling book
and he used the money to build a gorgeous house, that's between him and God.

The same would hold true if he made some financial investments that were
abundantly blessed or if someone gave him an amazing jet to use. I wouldn't
begrudge him in the least.

Why should I begrudge someone from enjoying God's blessings? If they are not
greedy for gain and if they do not see godliness as a means towards financial
prosperity—something that Paul denounced in the strongest terms in 1 Timothy
6—then what they do with their money is between them and God.

Over the last 39 years, my wife and I have been blessed with some very nice
houses and with some not-so-nice houses (and apartments), and we weren't any
more holy living in a small apartment than in a spacious house. Being poor
doesn't mean that you're spiritual and being rich doesn't mean that you're
carnal.

And priorities should not include a $65 million jet when millions across the
world are suffering.

"When a pastor wants people to buy him a private plane while a
missionary in Somalia bathes
children with sores, that's a shortage of character," Franklin writes. "When I camouflage my 'greeds' to look like
'needs,' that's a shortage of character."

Dollar said in a video campaign for a new private jet, which has since been canceled, that he needs a new jet to
further the spread of the gospel.

Financing of the jet would have required hundreds from Dollar's
supporters.

"If all of our existing partners were to sow $300 each, from all over
the world, we'd be able to acquire this jet in a very, very short period of
time," said Rick Hayes, project manager.

But for Franklin,
it goes beyond the asking of money, and into the heart. It's not about laws,
but rather about how to integrate morality into our choices.

"I agree you cannot legislate morality in our culture, but you cannot
avoid holding people accountable," Franklin
writes. "You can't let people slide by just because they are charismatic
and can 'kill' a room. We don't have a shortage of greatness, we have a
shortage of character."

5 Reasons Creflo Dollar Shouldn’t Buy a New Jet

This is a Gulfstream 650 jet, like the one Creflo Dollar
wanted to purchase.

This is a Gulfstream 650 jet, like the one Creflo Dollar
wanted to purchase.

Last week Atlanta-based prosperity preacher Creflo Dollar announced to the
world that he needed $65 million to buy a new Gulfstream jet. He asked 200,000
of his followers to donate $300 each so he could ride in style. He told his
audience that the plane was needed so he could "continue reaching a lost
and dying world for the Lord Jesus Christ."

A few people dug into their wallets to send Dollar the needed cash. The rest
of us started feeling sick to our stomachs.

By this week, after the blogosphere blew up with angry reactions to Dollar's
outlandish proposal, his public relations firm announced that "Project
G650" had been placed on hold. Dollar reluctantly caved to public pressure
and decided that, for now at least, he will have to be content to either
charter a private jet or—heaven forbid—fly first-class on a commercial plane.

I am not sure which is crazier—that Dollar insisted on being treated like
the king of a small country, or that his church-owned PR firm didn't realize
this inane fund-raising plan would backfire. Hello? Welcome to the year 2015, a
time when Christian people are smart enough to smell a religious scam before
they get bamboozled.

I hate to even give this scheme any attention, but there are naïve
Christians who don't realize when they are being taken to the cleaners by a man
who claims to speak for God. Rev. Dollar and those who follow him should be
ashamed that he has dragged the name of Jesus through the mud and made all
Christians look greedy and egotistical.

Here are the five top reasons why I would never give Creflo Dollar money for
a private jet:

1. Private jets are a foolish use of donor funds. The Bible
calls us to be good stewards of God's resources. Private aircraft cost an
exorbitant amount of money compared to commercial flights because the owners
must provide service and upkeep on the vehicles. If a preacher insists on
renting a private jet, the cost to fly from Fort Lauderdale
to New York
would be in the ballpark of $59,000, compared to a $652 ticket on a commercial
plane. People who own private jets spend as much as $4 million a year just on
maintenance.

2. Ministers shouldn't use donors to boost their egos. So
why would any preacher need his own plane? They can give you a litany of
reasons: Time saved, hassle-free travel, no worries about lost luggage. But the
real reason is obvious: It makes them look good. It's all about image. It
reveals a pride problem. And the Bible says: "God is opposed to the proud,
but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6b). If someone needs to fly to
the most remote village
of Borneo, and there are
no commercial planes, then I can understand the need for a private plane. But
Rev. Dollar is not going to Borneo. Usually he
is flying to his satellite church in Brooklyn,
New York. (Delta has a round-trip
ticket for $337 from Atlanta.)

3. Ministers who demand luxury deny the core of the gospel.
Rev. Dollar has been known to twist the gospel in the past, proposing that
Jesus was independently wealthy. Dollar invented this gospel to make it easier
to build a case for his own wealth. But the prosperity gospel has become a
hollow message in our generation. We are confronted every day by the reality of
poverty and suffering in our world, and we know that true followers of Christ
are called to give and share, not take and hoard. We also know that a preacher
who gets rich off of the offerings of poor people is involved in exploitation.

4. The world doesn't need a message of greed. The
prosperity gospel was popular during the 1980s, when many Christians in the United States
were riding the wave of American capitalism. But most of the get-rich preachers
of that era either landed in jail or fell morally, and we reaped a whirlwind of
bad fruit. We were supposed to learn a lesson from that failed experiment. God
blesses us not so we can become selfish consumers but so we can become selfless
channels of His blessings to others.

5. Jesus rode a donkey. When the Son of God was about to be
presented to the city of Jerusalem
as the promised Messiah, He didn't raise money to buy a gold chariot drawn by
Caesar's best horses. He rode on the back of a rented donkey, the
transportation of a poor man. He didn't require a first-class seat or a luxury
vehicle.

Jesus humbled himself. He lowered the bar and invited all of us—especially
those who call themselves ministers of the gospel—to model servanthood.